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Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

by PearlXHKPliajoj Posted on October 16, 2014

Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

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16 Oct 2014 3:29 PM

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Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

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Obama’s chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, has outlined the kind of global deal he might press for at the big U.N. climate conference in Paris in December 2015 — a summit negotiators have pinned their hopes on for finally hammering out a deal to reduce emissions. And while a plan is better than no plan, this one’s not as strong as many climate hawks would hope.

The plan Stern outlined during a speech at Yale earlier this week — a plan first suggested by New Zealand — would legally require countries to pledge to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to hit a 2025 goal. It would also legally require countries to periodically report to the international community how much progress they’ve made toward their goal. But it would not tell countries what their goal should be, nor would it legally require them to actually hit it. In August, Obama administration officials described this type of plan to The New York Times as a way to “name and shame” the world’s biggest emitters.

The danger of this kind of approach is that big-time polluters might commit to a target at the U.N., but then, faced with the realities of their own domestic politics, do little to reach it. “Shame” might not be enough of a deterrent for those nations struggling to keep their word.

So: Imagine telling your friends you’ll cut back on eating ice cream, detailing for them your plan to cut your ice cream consumption — and then, a week later, telling your friends, around a mouthful of ice cream, that you may not be able to keep your pledge. Your decision not to stick to your plan, and to face your friends’ shaming, would be informed by how much you care about your friends’ opinions, and how addicted you are to ice cream — just as big emitters’ decisions to hit their targets would dependon how much they care about international opinion and their ability to shift off of fossil fuels.

Stern acknowledged that this sort of nonbinding agreement will have some detractors. But there are benefits too! he said. For one, it would prevent big polluters from opting out, as happened with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Stern:

First, many countries, including major ones, won’t be willing to make their mitigation commitment legally binding at the international level, and once some balk, the premise of a legal form applicable to all unravels. Second, many countries, if forced to put forward a legally binding commitment, might low-ball that commitment out of anxiety about what legally binding might mean in this context. Third, the accountability provisions that are legally binding in the New Zealand approach do most of what is needed in any event — allowing others to understand clearly what the mitigation commitment is and to track whether it is being implemented.

Another reason the U.S. would be interested in avoiding a legally binding climate agreement is that such an agreement would likely have to be ratified by a two-thirds majority in our Senate. And that just won’t happen. Even if Democrats retain control of the Senate in next month’s midterms, there would still be too many climate change–denying conservatives who would get in the way of a treaty. As Grist’s Ben Adler wrote in August:

In theory, this means that 34 senators, representing as little as 7.5 percent of the American public if they come from the least populous states, can block any global action on climate change. The U.S. is the world’s biggest economy, and many other big nations won’t join an agreement if we won’t.

For the world to have any hope of reaching an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama’s negotiators will have to circumvent congressional Republicans. Stern’s agreement will have to be carefully constructed to dodge the Senate.

The approach is similar to the one Obama has taken domestically, using executive action via the EPA, instead of pushing legislation, which could make bigger changes to environmental policy but would inevitably die in today’s Congress. These executive actions — such as efforts to control power plant emissions and vehicle emissions — will also give the U.S. more authority in upcoming negotiations, Stern said.

Negotiators will be working on this plan further at the U.N. climate summit in Lima, Peru, this December, and hope to have the new agreement hammered out ahead of the 2015 Paris summit. Many are looking to that summit in 2015 as the last chance to reach the no-more-than-2-degrees-Celsius-of-warming target that scientists have put forward to avoid some of the really awful effects of climate change — and that, despite 20 years of climate negotiations, is still gradually slipping away.

Source:
Obama’s Climate Diplomat Explains What a Paris Emissions Deal Should Look Like

, National Journal.

U.S. considers climate change plan that would mandate emission cuts

, Los Angeles Times.

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Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

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Childhood Lead Exposure Causes a Lot More Than Just a Rise in Violent Crime

by PearlXHKPliajoj Posted on August 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Jessica Wolpaw Reyes has a new paper out that investigates the link between childhood lead exposure—mostly via tailpipe emissions of leaded gasoline—and violent crime. Unsurprisingly, since her previous research has shown a strong link, she finds a strong link again. But she also finds something else: a strong link between lead and teen pregnancy.

This is not a brand new finding. Rick Nevin’s very first paper about lead and crime was actually about both crime and teen pregnancy, and he found strong correlations for both at the national level. Reyes, however, goes a step further. It turns out that different states adopted unleaded gasoline at different rates, which allows Reyes to conduct a natural experiment. If lead exposure really does cause higher rates of teen pregnancy, then you’d expect states with the lowest levels of leaded gasoline to also have the lowest levels of teen pregnancy 15 years later. And guess what? They do. The chart on the right shows the correlation between gasoline lead exposure and later rates of teen pregnancy, and it’s very strong. Stronger even than the correlation with violent crime.

None of this should come as a surprise. The neurological basis for the lead-crime theory suggests that childhood lead exposure affects parts of the brain that have to do with judgment, impulse control, and executive functions. This means that lead exposure is likely to be associated not just with violent crime, but with juvenile misbehavior, drug use, teen pregnancy, and other risky behaviors. And that turns out to be the case. Reyes finds correlations with behavioral problems starting at a young age; teen pregnancy; and violent crime rates among older children.

It’s a funny thing. For years conservatives bemoaned the problem of risky and violent behavior among children and teens of the post-60s era, mostly blaming it on the breakdown of the family and a general decline in discipline. Liberals tended to take this less seriously, and in any case mostly blamed it on societal problems. In the end, though, it turned out that conservatives were right. It wasn’t just a bunch of oldsters complaining about the kids these days. Crime was up, drug use was up, and teen pregnancy was up. It was a genuine phenomenon and a genuine problem.

But liberals were right that it wasn’t related to the disintegration of the family or lower rates of churchgoing or any of that. After all, families didn’t suddenly start getting back together in the 90s and churchgoing didn’t suddenly rise. But teenage crime, drug use, and pregnancy rates all went down. And down. And down.

Most likely, there was a real problem, but it was a problem no one had a clue about. We were poisoning our children with a well-known neurotoxin, and this toxin lowered their IQs, made them into fidgety kids, wrecked their educations, and then turned them into juvenile delinquents, teen mothers, and violent criminals. When we got rid of the toxin, all of these problems magically started to decline.

This doesn’t mean that lead was 100 percent of the problem. There probably were other things going on too, and we can continue to argue about them. But the volume of the argument really ought to be lowered a lot. Maybe poverty makes a difference, maybe single parenting makes a difference, and maybe evolving societal attitudes toward child-rearing make a difference. But they probably don’t make nearly as much difference as we all thought. In the end, we’ve learned a valuable lesson: don’t poison your kids. That makes more difference than all the other stuff put together.

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Childhood Lead Exposure Causes a Lot More Than Just a Rise in Violent Crime

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Verizon Says It Wants to Kill Net Neutrality to Help Blind, Deaf, and Disabled People

by PearlXHKPliajoj Posted on June 13, 2014

Mother Jones

Verizon lobbyists are canvassing Capitol Hill with a curious new argument against net neutrality—it hurts disabled people.

The odd pitch comes as the Obama administration is mulling a plan to scrap net neutrality—the idea that Internet service providers should treat all websites equally—and instead allow ISPs to create Internet “fast lanes” for companies that can afford to pay for speedier service. The proposal, which is under consideration by the Federal Communications Commission, has sparked a massive public outcry, including an “Occupy the FCC” protest and a letter signed by 150 tech companies, including Google, Amazon, and Netflix, opposing the plan.

Three Hill sources tell Mother Jones that Verizon lobbyists have cited the needs of blind, deaf, and disabled people to try to convince congressional staffers and their bosses to get on board with the fast lane idea. But groups representing disabled Americans, including the National Association of the Deaf, the National Federation of the Blind, and the American Association of People with Disabilities are not advocating for this plan. Mark Perriello, the president and CEO of the AAPD, says that this is the “first time” he has heard “these specific talking points.”

There’s no doubt that blind and deaf people, who use special online services to communicate, need access to zippy Internet. Similarly, smartphone-based medical devices that are popular with disabled people require fast Internet service. Telecom industry lobbyists have argued that, without a fast lane, disabled Americans could get stuck with subpar service as Internet traffic increases. AAPD’s Perriello says this rationale could be genuine but seems “convenient.”

Defenders of net neutrality are more cynical. The Verizon lobbyists’ argument is “disingenuous,” says Matt Wood, a policy director at Free Press, an Internet freedom advocacy group. The FCC says that even if the agency doesn’t go through with its fast lane proposal, companies that serve disabled people would still be able to pay internet service providers for faster service.

A spokesman for Verizon wouldn’t confirm that Verizon lobbyists have used the disabled access pitch, but he says the company’s position on the FCC’s proposal is “not disingenuous.” (Verizon has not taken a public stance on the FCC’s proposed fast lane rule.) An FCC spokesman says the agency is evaluating the industry’s disability argument.

The roots of the net neutrality fight go back more than a decade. In 2002, the George W. Bush-era FCC decided to classify the internet as an “information service” instead of a public utility, protecting internet services from the stringent regulations that land line phones fall under. For years, free Internet advocates urged the FCC to reclassify the internet, but the commission resisted.

Last month, the FCC dealt a major blow to net neutrality by proposing new rules that would allow Internet service providers to charge online content providers such as Facebook and Netflix higher rates for faster service. The move caused a national outcry. Last week, the FCC’s website crashed after comedian John Oliver urged Internet “trolls” to comment at the agency’s website. In response to public ire, the FCC has said it will reconsider classifying the Internet as a common utility.

The telecom industry is striving to ensure that the agency doesn’t do that. In 2014 alone, Internet service providers have spent close to $19 million lobbying on net neutrality, according to Senate lobbying records:

Overall, ISP lobbying has exploded over the past decade:

This is not the first time the industry has cited the needs of disabled people as it sought to influence FCC rules. Verizon made this argument five years ago when the commission was drafting new regulations for ISPs. In a 2009 speech, former Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that if his company was not allowed to prioritize certain medical data over internet traffic like email and spam, then people with health conditions might not benefit from life-saving technological advances.

The decision the FCC makes in the coming months could “change the course of the Internet for a long time to come,” says Michael Copps, who served as an FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2011, “perhaps in ways that will be impossible to reverse.”

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Verizon Says It Wants to Kill Net Neutrality to Help Blind, Deaf, and Disabled People

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